“Yes, you said that.” My fingers meet the cold steel of the dart gun, and a rough sound bursts from Bane in warning. Liftingmy chin, I curl my fingers around it anyway and force my voice to remain steady. I’m done baring my neck to assholes. “What happened to Zeke? Why are you awake?”
It can’t be for anything good. Did something or someone attack Zeke? Harm him?
“Mine.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.What’syours?”
Bane cocks his head, his stormy visage making Zeke’s normally pale green eyes seem even more muted. “Au-re-li-a.”
Oh fuck.He thinks I’mhis? His towhat? His to kill?
I don’t stand a chance against the shudder that agitates my muscles, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about the dread creeping down my spine like taunting little fingers that say it’s only a matter of time.
Bane was the one who killed Tatum, the girl Zeke had been in love with, and he’d done it with his bare hands and without hesitation. Zeke certainly didn’t love me. He barely tolerated me. There was very little stopping Bane from snapping my neck too.
And the reality of him is so much more terrifying than the stories.
As if he can hear my thoughts, Bane slowly reaches out a hand toward my neck, and I try to force my limbs to unlock, but I’m a statue as he claims a golden curl plastered against my neck and for the first time, something alive flickers in Bane’s eyes as he rubs the strand reverently.
“Touch her and I swear to God, I’ll end you!”
I’m too terrified to tell Thorin that he’s already touching me. Thorin’s shout draws Bane’s attention away from my hair. His brows slam downward as he looks over my head, and his bare chest expands with a deep inhale, and then something rough and angry rumbles from within before he moves as if he’s going to step around me.
And go where? Into the river? It’s suicide. The water is chest high now, and the current is too rough to swim.
“Wait. Stop.” Bane keeps going while I stumble after him. His focus is directed across the river, on Khalil and Thorin, with deadly intent, and he’s one step from walking off the ledge when I do the dumbest thing ever.
I grab his arm.
Bane is nothing more than a blur of movement as he reacts.
He spins while I pull the tranq gun free of its holster. I watch in absolute horror as Bane knocks it from my hand, and I don’t see where it goes because his hand is around my throat in a vise grip.
“No,” he roughly commands.No?No what? “Stay.”
“You can’t—” His fingers tighten in warning, cutting off the rest of my sentence. Panic flares in my chest and my stomach, because for fuck’s sake, this isBane, but just as swiftly I cut off the emotion and focus.You know what to do.
Dropping my chin to protect my airway, I lift both arms and bring my hands together to form one fist before I bring it down as hard as I can into the sensitive joint of his elbow. The blow doesn’t break his hold completely, but it loosens it enough for me to twist away and out of reach.
Bane is still scowling, but he doesn’t try to reclaim me.
When I sneak a glance across the river to assure myself they’re unharmed even though I stopped Bane, I see Thorin leaning against a tree in pain and Khalil searching for a way across.
There’s another loud crack a moment later, and I assume it’s more thunder until I hear Thorin’s shout. “Aurelia! Look out!”
I see him pointing to something above my head, but there’s no time to think or question before I’m yanked toward the ledge and out of the way. I’m knocked into Bane, and I don’t have timeto dread those lethal hands on my body again because a tree comes crashing down right where I was standing.
Thorin shouts my name and an order to stay put, but I only get a glimpse of the tree’s long trunk hovering over the churning water now before Bane and I begin to slide.
Too late I realize we’re right at the edge.
My heart drops like a deadweight in my stomach when the mud separates and sends us both careening over the side of the slippery slope. I hear someone scream as we fall through the air, and I’m certain it’s me before I plunge into the cold water. I’m tumbled, swept, and pushed downriver as water fills my ravaged lungs, and I wait for death to claim me.
KHALIL
Iwatch with my heart in my throat as lightning strikes a tree near Aurelia and Bane, splitting it in half. Thorin shouts a warning, but Bane is already tugging a wide-eyed Aurelia out of the way. It’s a decision I’m going to have to dissect later since it doesn’t fit everything we know about him.
Nothingabout Bane has been normal since Aurelia arrived at our cabin.
